Rachita Dash

I am a final-year Chemistry Ph.D. candidate at the University of Virginia. My research focuses on developing and applying methodologies to assess the accumulation of small molecules and peptides across cellular surfaces.

I possess a strong background in solid-phase peptide synthesis (especially in synthesizing macrocyclic peptides), flow cytometry, high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC), MALDI-TOF, SDS-PAGE, protein expression, and click chemistry among other skills.

news

Sep 16, 2025	Our work was featured in Science magazine’s In the Pipeline by Derek Lowe!
Sep 06, 2025	The American Peptide Society (APS) covered me as part of their student spotlight series!
Sep 05, 2025	The American Peptide Society (APS) covered a story on our work on drug delivery.
Jul 14, 2025	UVA Graduate School of Arts and Sciences covered a story on our work on drug delivery.
Jun 15, 2025	Attended the 29th American Peptide Symposium in San Diego, California (funded by a travel award grant by the American Peptide Society) in San Diego, California

selected publications

Split-luciferin Assay for Real-time Measurement of Cytosolic Drug Accumulation in Live Mycobacteria

Rachita Dash, Andrew Spira, Noah Lucas, Sobika Bhandari, Mahendra Chordia, and Marcos Pires

bioRxiv, 2025

Bib PDF

@article{dash2025split,
  title = {Split-luciferin Assay for Real-time Measurement of Cytosolic Drug Accumulation in Live Mycobacteria},
  author = {Dash, Rachita and Spira, Andrew and Lucas, Noah and Bhandari, Sobika and Chordia, Mahendra and Pires, Marcos},
  journal = {bioRxiv},
  year = {2025},
  publisher = {Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory},
}

Profiling Cytosolic Drug Delivery in Mammalian Cells: A Generalizable Assay for Intracellular Accumulation

Sobika Bhandari, George M Ongwae, Rachita Dash, Zichen Liu, Yuchen He, Mahendra D Chordia, and 1 more author

bioRxiv, 2025

Bib PDF

@article{bhandari2025profiling,
  title = {Profiling Cytosolic Drug Delivery in Mammalian Cells: A Generalizable Assay for Intracellular Accumulation},
  author = {Bhandari, Sobika and Ongwae, George M and Dash, Rachita and Liu, Zichen and He, Yuchen and Chordia, Mahendra D and Pires, Marcos},
  journal = {bioRxiv},
  year = {2025},
  publisher = {Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory},
}

Systematic Determination of the Impact of Structural Edits on Peptide Accumulation into Mycobacteria

Rachita Dash, Zichen Liu, Irene Lepori, Mahendra D Chordia, Karl Ocius, Kadie Holsinger, and 5 more authors

ACS Chemical Biology, 2025

Bib PDF

@article{dash2025systematic,
  title = {Systematic Determination of the Impact of Structural Edits on Peptide Accumulation into Mycobacteria},
  author = {Dash, Rachita and Liu, Zichen and Lepori, Irene and Chordia, Mahendra D and Ocius, Karl and Holsinger, Kadie and Zhang, Han and Kenyon, Ryan and Im, Wonpil and Siegrist, M Sloan and others},
  journal = {ACS Chemical Biology},
  year = {2025},
  publisher = {ACS Publications},
}

Bioluminescence-Based Determination of Cytosolic Accumulation of Antibiotics in Escherichia coli

Rachita Dash, Kadie A Holsinger, Mahendra D Chordia, Mohammad Sharifian Gh, and Marcos M Pires

ACS Infectious Diseases, 2024

Bib PDF

@article{dash2024bioluminescence,
  title = {Bioluminescence-Based Determination of Cytosolic Accumulation of Antibiotics in Escherichia coli},
  author = {Dash, Rachita and Holsinger, Kadie A and Chordia, Mahendra D and Gh, Mohammad Sharifian and Pires, Marcos M},
  journal = {ACS Infectious Diseases},
  volume = {10},
  number = {5},
  pages = {1602--1611},
  year = {2024},
  publisher = {ACS Publications},
}

Click-Based Determination of Accumulation of Molecules in Escherichia coli

George M Ongwae, Zichen Liu, Shasha Feng, Mahendra D Chordia, Mohammad Sharifian Gh, Rachita Dash, and 5 more authors

bioRxiv, 2025

(Under Review, Nature Communications)

Bib PDF

@article{ongwae2025click,
  title = {Click-Based Determination of Accumulation of Molecules in Escherichia coli},
  author = {Ongwae, George M and Liu, Zichen and Feng, Shasha and Chordia, Mahendra D and Sharifian Gh, Mohammad and Dash, Rachita and Dalesandro, Brianna E and Guo, Taijie and Sharpless, Karl Barry and Dong, Jiajia and others},
  journal = {bioRxiv},
  year = {2025},
  publisher = {Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory},
  note = {(Under Review, <i>Nature Communications</i>)},
}